Bio

I am currently a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Sport, Gamification, and Health Management (游戏化运动健康管理), at Department of Physical Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. Prior to this, I studied in Munich, Philadelphia, Copenhagen, Cologne, and Shanghai.

I received my PhD in Economics and Social Sciences (Dr. rer. pol.; dissertation) at TUM School of Management of Technical University of Munich in 2023, with the highest distinction (summa cum laude). My PhD advisor was Professor Jörg Königstorfer. During my time at TUM, I was also employed as Research Associate at Chair of Sport and Health Management of TUM School of Medicine and Health, where I taught and advised sport- and health-related courses and theses for both undergraduates and postgraduates. In 2022, I stayed at Department of Sport & Recreation Management (Fox School of Business) of Temple University in Philadelphia USA for 6 months, granted by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Mobility fellowship. Here is my alumniPage@TUM, where I crossed over the spring, summer, autumn, and winter of Olympiapark (1972) to my office at Georg-Brauchle-Ring.

I earned my master’s degree in Sport Science at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2019. During my master’s, I spent 3 months at German Sport University Cologne, fully granted by DAAD. I also spent 6 months at Centre for Physical Activity Research of University of Copenhagen, fully granted by CSC and Danish Government Scholarship. Prior to that, I received my bachelor in Management at School of Management of Shanghai University.

I am passionate about sports, particularly evening 🏃 and🎾. I am a certified tennis referee, pickleball referee (national II), and pickleball instructor.

Updates

• 09/2026: Master’s student Mr. Yueyang Hu (B.M. from School of Management Beijing Sport University) has joined the team.
• 06/2026: I serve as an Associate Editor of Sage Open.
• 04/2026: Two abstracts were accepted by The 31st Annual Congress of ECSS, Lausanne, Switzerland.
• 01/2026: I was awarded 2025教育部直属高等工业学校体育工作先进个人.
• 2025: I was involved in the Shanghai overseas high-level talent plan (上海市海外高层次青年人才).
• 12/2025: I serve as an Associate Editor of Journal of Sports Analytics.
• 09/2025: Master’s student Mr. Changchun Li (B.S. from Beijing Sport University) has joined the team.
• 09/2025: My research was funded by the NSFC young scientists grant (国自然青年基金C).
• 03/2025: our paper entitled “Fan Attitude toward Athlete Activism for Black Lives Matter” was accepted by Journal of Sport & Social Issues.
• 01/2025: our paper entitled “A machine learning approach to understanding performance of Canadian nonprofit sport organizations” was accepted by Nonprofit Management & Leadership.
• 2024: my research was funded by the pujiang program (浦江人才).
• 12/2024: our paper entitled “The curvilinear effects of relative positions in smartphone App leaderboards on physical activity” was accepted by Computers in Human Behavior.
• 10/2024: I joined the editorial review board of Digital Health.
• 01/2024: I started as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Sport and Health Management at SJTU, I am excited about this new adventure.
• 11/2023: I received certificate of the “dvs-Mentoring Programm for Young Scientists” of the German Society of Sport Science.
• 10/2023: I received the Gewährung einer Leistungsprämie, Präsident, at TUM.
• 10/2023: I successfully defend my PhD dissertation (disputatio) with highest distinction (summa cum laude).
• 09/2023: I presented at the 31st European Sport Management Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• 03/2023: our paper entitled “The State of Play between Managing Major Sport Events and Human Rights: A Scoping Review” was accepted by Event Management.
• 12/2022: I received the Certificate for Teaching in Higher Education of Bavarian Universities.
• 11/2022: I received the Certificate of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship.
• 11/2022: our paper entitled “Predicting transfer fees in professional European football before and during COVID-19 using machine learning” was accepted by European Sport Management Quarterly.
• 06/2022: I presented at the 2022 North American Society for Sport Management Conference in Atlanta, USA.
• 08/2022: I was funded by TUM School of Management as a two-year Academic Training Program Fellow, Technical University of Munich.
• 04/2022: I have been staying as a visiting PhD student for 6 months at the Sport Industry Research Center, Department of Sport and Recreation Management, Temple University, USA.
• 03/2022: our paper entitled “The effects of a lifestyle intervention supported by the InterWalk smart-phone application on increasing physical activity among persons with type 2 diabetes: A parallel-group, randomized trial” was accepted by JMIR mHealth and uHealth.
• 01/2022: I joined the “dvs-Mentoring Programm for Young Scientists” of the German Society of Sport Science, with Prof. Sebastian Uhrich from German Sport University as my mentor.
• 10/2021: our paper entitled “Effects of Gamified Smartphone Applications on Physical Activity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” was accepted by American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
• 09/2021: I received the Gewährung einer Leistungsprämie, Präsident, at TUM.
• 04/2021: our paper entitled “Keeping it Real or Bridging the Gap? Brand Positioning of US Sport Teams in Germany and China” was accepted by Journal of Sport Management.
• 05/2021: our paper entitled “Determinants of Fitness App Usage and Moderating Impacts of Education-, Motivation-, and Gamification-Related App Features on Physical Activity Intentions: Cross-sectional Survey Study” was accepted by Journal of Medical Internet Research.
• 08/2020: our paper entitled “Determinants of physical activity maintenance during the Covid-19 pandemic: A focus on fitness apps” was accepted by Translational Behavioral Medicine.
• 11/2019: I started as a PhD student at TUM School of Management and an employed research associate at Chair of Sport and Health Management of TUM.
• 08/2019: I’ve received fully-funded PhD scholarships from U of Deakin and U of Queensland, and PhD contracts from U of Jyväskylä and TUM.
• 10/2018: our paper entitled “Reliability and validity of a new accelerometer-based device for detecting physical activities and energy expenditure” was accepted by PeerJ.
• 09/2018: I have been staying as a joint master’s student for 6 months at Center for Physical Activity Research, Copenhagen University, Denmark.
• 05/2018: I have been staying as a visiting master’s student for 3 months at German Sport University Cologne, Germany.
• 09/2016: I started as a master’s student at Department of Physical Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Contact

📧 y@sjtu.edu.cn, y@tum.de, y=yanxiang.yang